In the fall of 2000, a failed politician named Michael Farris threw open the doors to a Christian college in rural northern Virginia, … The mission of Patrick Henry College was to attract and cultivate academic stars from the ranks of home-schooled evangelicals, then send them off on graduation day to “shape the culture and take back the nation,” in the words of a common home- schooling rallying cry.

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… Rosin approaches the year and a half she spends at Patrick Henry determined to understand the inner emotional workings of the students, most of whom arrive on campus and then encounter Washington politics after leaving the confines of a home-school education.

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The question must be asked of any writer undertaking this enterprise: Are you trying to horrify your like-minded readers or enlighten them? Rosin clearly intended to enlighten.

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They’re the “Joshua Generation,” the youthful Evangelicals who hope to “shape the culture and take back the nation.” Whether these kids terrify or delight you has everything to do with your political and religious views but, one way or the other, they are people that you should probably start getting to know. God’s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America by Hanna Rosin offers an intriguing introduction.

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But Evangelicals like Farris, tired of watching a secular elite (as they see it) run the US, have other hopes for bright lights like Derek: senator, governor, judge, secretary of State, or maybe even president. (Farris dreams of the day when he will introduce his college’s ultimate graduation day speaker: “President So and So, an alumnus of Patrick Henry.”)

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Rosin also interviews Patrick Henry faculty members and the showdown that eventually develops between them and Farris is one of the most fascinating parts of the book. Critical thinking slams up against dogmatic certainty and the inevitable collision is not pretty to watch.

“Experimental communities almost always implode,” observes Rosin and Patrick Henry is indeed reeling by the book’s final chapter. In this case, however, down is not out and there will certainly be more to be heard from both Patrick Henry College and the ambitious young graduates it will produce. “God’s Harvard” is a good starting point.

Containing many similarly intimate vignettes, “God’s Harvard” easily could have remained an anthropological study of an oddball college. But Rosin treats Patrick Henry as a petri dish in which the major trends of the sprawling evangelical subculture are concentrated. A creationism conference attended by a PHC biology professor becomes an investigation into the burgeoning Christian movement to bolster the anti-evolution cause with real science. The experiences of an undergraduate with filmmaking aspirations morph into the saga of how Hollywood became more evangelical-friendly after Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.”

Some of these asides feel shoehorned into what is essentially a portrait of a young campus. But they do give the sense that it’s not just 300 kids in Purcellville who are coming of age, but an entire movement of tens of millions of evangelicals.